Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H
Without noise and a dust

Evgenie Rudometov

www.rudometov.com

On the basis of the firm developments company Gigabyte has released the next silent model of a videocard

In struggle against heats of high-powered video chips implementators of videocards offer different systems of cooling. The majority of them provides presence of the fans which are sources of acoustic noise. In aggregate with other sources they reduce level of comfort of computers. Understanding it, designers offer alternative variants of systems of the cooling, differing in the reduced noise level.

As an example of one of such solutions it is possible to result videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H created on the basis of rather powerful video chip (Graphics Processing Unit, GPU) — ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT.

GPU ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Geometry processor GPU ATI Radeon HD used in videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H 2600 XT belongs to ATI Radeon HD 2600 set. Key parametres ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT are resulted in Table 1.

Table 1. Key parametres GPU ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Code name	RV630
The "know-how", micron	0,065
Number of transistors, million	390
Frequency of a kernel, MHz	600-800
Memory type	GDDR3/GDDR4
The bus of memory, bit	128
Frequency of memory, MHz	1400/2200
Pass-band of memory, Gbyte/with	22,4/35,2
Memory size, Mb	256
The interface	PCI Express x16

Package and videocard key parametres

The package of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H is presented in a Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. A package of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H

Package components are placed in brightly painted cardboard box in which design graphic units of popular game Neverwinter Nights are used.

Into package structure enter go:

·         Videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H created on the basis of video chip ATI Radeon HD 2600XT,

·         two adapters DVI-I in D-Sub;

·         general-purpose splitter S-Video/RCA/YPbPr; the Bridge (bridge CrossFire), used for interconnection of the videocards realising processing technique ATI CrossFire;

·         the user manual in English and Chinese languages;

·         CD-ROM with drivers;

·         DVD c game Neverwinter Nights 2 and the brochure with its description.

Key parametres of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H are resulted in Table 2.

Table 2. Key parametres of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H

Units and subsystems	Parametres
The geometry processor	ATI Radeon HD 2600XT
The hooking up interface	PCI Express x16
Speed of the bus	x16
Size of a video memory, Mb	256
Width the bus of a video memory, bit	128
Video memory type	GDDR3 16Mx32
D-SUB	Yes (through the adapter)
TV-OUT	Yes
DVI	Yes (DVI-I)
VIVO	No
MultiView	Yes

The minimum system requirements necessary for correct operation of a videocard, are presented in Table 3.

Table 3. The minimum system requirements

Units and subsystems	Parametres
The central processor unit	Intel of Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon
The hooking up interface	PCI Express x16
Size of dynamic storage, Mb	512 (1024 or more – for bolshej productivity)
The optical drive for installation ON	CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
The operating system	OS Windows Vista, Windows XP with SP2, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Power supply unit, W	550

The videocard supports Direct  10 and OpenGL  2.0, processing technique Avivo for playback HD video, and also processing technique ATI CrossFire providing simultaneous operation of two videocards, carrying out the uniform task.

For the organisation of the pattern realising processing technique ATI CrossFire, two maps Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H, and also the motherboard with two PCI slots Expess x16 are required . For support of simultaneous operation of two maps it is recommended to use a power supply unit of adequate power, for example, 1000 W.

Features of a construction

The system of cooling of the video chip — GPU ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT is presented special bezventiljatornoj by a construction. It consists of the massive heat sink and a heat-conducting handset (Heat Pipe — a thermal pipe — a pipe providing transmission of heat). The given construction is mechanically fixed on GPU (a Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Appearance of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H

The principle of operation of thermal handsets is grounded on thermophysics of transformation of the liquids concluded in hollow handsets, vehicles of transmission of thermal energy playing a role. Usage of thermal handsets allows to create silent constructions from the several heat sinks jointed together. Such constructions effectively disseminate redundant heat GPU at the expense of the internal air streams provided with case fans at complete absence of acoustic noise from the videocard.

The method of cooling with usage of the specified passive systems has been named by experts Gigabyte processing technique Silent-Pipe. This processing technique has received the implementation in a number of silent models of videocards of the given company.

Such, completely the passive construction (a Fig. 3) also has been taken as a principle systems of cooling of video chip ATIRadeon HD 2600 XT, applied as a part of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H. It is necessary to mark, that the used heat-conducting pipe zapressovana in the heat sink and consists of two sections. They provide an effective vending of redundant heat and its allocation in the heat sink at the expense of fast alignment of temperature.

Fig. 3. System of cooling GPU of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H

One more feature Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H is usage of highly reliable units — UltraDurable. Implementators especially underline, that in the architecture of the given product modern solid-state capacitors are applied. Of it reminds an inscription on a face of a packing box: All-Solid Capacitor. In comparison with traditional elektroliticheskimi capacitors, they have the best characteristics and provide more durable operation. Really, given capacitors are characterised by the raised stability to extremal working conditions. Besides, they differ the reduced value of an equivalent consecutive resistance that reduces their internal and external values of temperature by operation in electronic chains. Life expectancy at limiting admissible temperature 105 °s makes more than 3000 hours. Usage of such capacitors increases period of the accident-free service of arrangements in which structure similar units are applied. All it allows to calculate for raised dependability of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H.

As to productivity of the specified videocard it has been estimated in the course of testing.

 

Productivity estimation

Pattern of the system used in testing of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H:

·         the Motherboard of Intel D975XBX (a chip set i975X),

·         the Processor of Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Conroe, Dual Core, 65 nanometers, 2,93 GHz, the bus — 1066 MHz, L2  — 4 Mb),

·         Dynamic storage DDR2 667, two Apacer units on 1 Gbyte, two channels,

·         Videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H (chip ATIRadeon HD 2600XT, bus PCI Express x16),

·         Hard disk drive Seagate in 7200.10 size of 750 Gbytes,

·         OC Operating system Windows 2003 Enterprise Server.

The performance level of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H is characterised by the numerical data resulted in Table 4, Table 5 and in a Fig. 4.

As the matching object the videocard created on the basis of chip ATI Radeon X600 has been selected. Several years ago it thanks to the high parametres concerned products of class High End.

Table 4. Results of performance of the test 3DMark05

Videocards	Results
GV-RX26T256H	10267
ATI Radeon X600	2293

Table 5. Results of performance of the test 3DMark06

Videocards	Results
GV-RX26T256H	4733
ATI Radeon X600	560

Fig. 4. Results of performance of the test 3DMark06

Resulted in tables and in a figure results of testing testify to rather high efficiency of videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H. And though in a number of tests the given videocard conceded in high-speed performance to some advanced models with active systems of cooling a little, its productivity was quite enough for the majority of tasks, including many modern dynamical games. It allows to recommend videocard Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H to a wide range of users, especially to those who is interested in usage of silent and rather high-powered video subsystems as a part of the computers.

Videocard GV-RX26T256H has been given by the Moscow office of company Gigabyte